I am sure, like mine, your heart is broken over the horrors we are witnessing between Israel and Palestine, as well as the hate crimes we are seeing in response to this crisis.

In a moment of pure serendipity, I had an interview that was scheduled months ago with poet James Crews to chat about his new book, The Wonder of Small Things; Poems of Peace & Renewal. I originally planned to air this conversation as a Winter Solstice offering, but his book feels like the perfect balm for the pain of this moment.

When emotion overwhelms our system, it is called 'flooding', and in today’s episode, we are going to learn to build our rafts. We will explore soothing techniques to support our big emotions.

Join me for today’s talk and 20-minute guided meditation practice - an experience of soothing.

What changes when you think of your emotions as a ‘sense’ rather than as a problem to be fixed? In the same way that we use our eyes, ears and fingers to take in information, we use our emotions to do the same.

In this episode of The Mindful Minute, we talk about

• Big emotions and the feeling of trying to contain it rather than let it flow

• Emotions and the element of water

• Softening the edges of the body

• Otter dreams and walking through the gift shop with kids

I have noticed the prevalence of two difficult emotions both in my own life as well as in my conversations with others - grief & anxiety. Difficult emotions to be sure. Over the next four episodes, I want to explore working with difficult emotions in our meditation practice.

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we talk about:

• What is real and what is untrue

• The forethought of grief

• Why there is always a place for your emotions, no matter how big, in meditation

Today, Tracee joins The Mindful Minute to talk about her new book, The Luminous Self, and share some of the profound practices included within.

The Luminous Self is a book that answers the questions on how to inquire into our suffering and past conditioning, empowering ourselves to turn towards truth and power. It begins with the essential question : Who am I?

In this series, I named three things that regularly inspire awe for me-

Birds

Books

Meditation

All 3 regularly stop me in my tracks, and they make my jaw drop. They make me smile, wonder, and listen. They weave their way into my conversations and my dreams. In short, they inspire awe within me.

We sit with the intention of meandering through the caverns of our mind and the lake of our heart. We don’t rush, we don’t brush things off, or ignore them.

We taste. We savor. We experience.

Our practice, like ourselves, is boundless. Limits are useless here. And often so is language.

Books have their place. They point us to something.

But experience is the only path forward… The only knowing.

In this class, we explore books, language, signs and symbols as a way to relate to our practice and to accept its ambiguity. Join me for a brief discussion and 20-minute guided meditation.

We added a few bird feeders and a bird bath to our backyard garden at the start of the year, and the bird population has absolutely exploded. And, since I sit outside to meditate everyday, I have a front row seat to the show.

At first, I found the constant birdsong a distraction to my practice, but I QUICKLY found that it became a soundtrack of upliftment and positive feelings. It is only natural then that I began to ask.. Why?